


Ozymandias

by wewhofightmonsters



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:17:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wewhofightmonsters/pseuds/wewhofightmonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico lives in darkness, and dreams of sun.</p><p>(or Jason and his Goddamn Inner Narrative)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_ "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: _

_ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" _

_ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay _

_ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare _

_ The lone and level sands stretch far away. _

 

* * *

“I found a new arena,” is the first thing Percy says when Nico swings open the door. “And they pay you upwards of five-hundred for every match you win.”

“Nice to see you, too.” Nico mutters.

“Yeah, yeah,” Percy replies, breezing through the door; a blur of black clothing and barely contained energy. “You coming with me tonight? I need moral support.” 

Nico snorts in spite of himself, one corner of his mouth tugging up. “You need moral support to punch people in the face?”

“Exactly.”

Nico shrugs, swipes an opened can of soda that probably isn’t more than two days old off the counter and takes a swig. “If you want me there, okay.”

Percy grins like a shark, sometimes, Nico thinks, abstractedly, all sharp teeth and bloodlust.

“Excellent.”

 

i.

The thing is, Nico wasn’t born in darkness. He was born on the surface. He’s positive that he was born on the surface, because sometimes he catches himself looking at the lights around him and thinking, ‘You’re not real.’ The artificial light couldn’t even begin to compare to the real thing. When his mother first brought him Underside, in the beginning days when they still had food to eat four days out of seven, she would hold him in her lap sometimes, huddled in some dark, rank alley, and tell him to close his eyes and pretend he could feel the sun on his face. She would wrap her thin arms around him, her cheek pressed to his hair, and together they would close their eyes and imagine.

After she died, Nico sat next to her body for three days and did not open his eyes, but he couldn’t imagine the sun anymore. 

It had happened gradually, and he hadn’t noticed that his mother was starving to death, because he was, too. When she came back to the ally with a stolen orange, or half a sandwich she’d snatched from a dumpster, she would hand it to him with a smile.

“Eat up, mio caro,” she’d say, and ruffle his hair, “you want to grow up tall and strong one day. Strong enough to climb back up to the surface.”

She never mentioned he would have to do it alone.

They had made do, most of the time. They found bridges and cardboard boxes to sleep under, food in dumpsters and in the mice and rats Nico was quick enough to catch with his bare hands. When things got really bad, and Nico could hardly move except to press his emaciated body into his mother’s side and whimper, she would leave him in an alley for a while, and come back with a man. Nico would hide behind a trash heap or a pile of old boxes and plug his ears until his mother would come to get him. She never told him what she was doing, but Nico knew. Once, his mother found work at a seedy cafe, waiting tables and cooking. It was the best job she’d ever had, even though the pay was shit. But next to nothing was better than nothing, after all, and after a while they had enough to pay the transport fee to get to Circuit 6. 

“You’ll see, mio caro,” his mother used to tell him, stroking his inky hair, “we’ll find your father and things will be good again, the way they used to be.”

Then his mother got sick, the kind of sick you don’t get better from. She couldn’t work, she couldn’t eat, and all Nico could do was hold her when she collapsed and couldn’t get back up again.

“Promise me something, mio caro?” she rasped, her eyes glazed from fever, and Nico - sheltering her from the rain with his own small body - had nodded desperately.

“Go back to the surface. Promise me, Nico. I know it seems a long ways away, but you must not give up. Find your father and go back to the surface together. Start a new life. Keep your sister and I in your hearts, and _live_.”

And Nico, who hated his father more than he had ever hated anyone, promised.

For a moment, his mother’s eyes had been clear, as she lifted a shaky hand and touched his cheek.

“Mio piccolo principe. Non piangere. Non dimenticare il sole.”

When the life left her body, he felt it. He did not leave her rapidly cooling corpse. He held the stiff hand to his cheek and tried to imagine the sun.

On the first day, he wept until his eyes were swollen and red, but the ache in his throat was nothing compared to the ache in his chest.

On the second day, the hunger he had been barely escaping caught up to him. That pain was harder to ignore.

On the third day, the hunger had faded to a dull hollowness. Everything was hollow.

On the fourth day, Percy found him.

 

 ii.

“Why do I do this to myself?” Nico mutters, questioning his place in life, trying very hard not to breathe in the foul air surrounding the overweight man next to him with the beer stains all down his shirt. The little arena is cramped, dank, and dimly lit; the smell of stale sweat and rot overpowering the fainter scent of blood.

“Gonna be good tonight!” Overweight and Beerstained bellows, spraying spittle all over Nico’s face and flashing yellowed, rotting teeth. Nico takes a discreet step in the opposite direction.  “Who’s your money on, eh, kid?” 

Overweight and Beerstained elbows him, leering and full of false camaraderie.

“I’m not betting.” Nico replies sourly, rubbing at his side.

“Too bad, kid. Tonight’s a good night for making bank. See th’ monster down there?”

He points, and Nico follows his finger to the ring. The light there is slightly better, and it’s easy to pick out the hulking figure of a man, scarred and bulging with the kind of muscle that comes from a lifetime of fighting. A rusty, bloodstained chainsaw dangles from his enormous hands.

“That’s the Bisector.” Overweight and Beerstained stage whispers. Nico frowns.

“A strangely intelligent code name for a man who looks likes he was last in line when they were handing out brains.” he replies, absentmindedly. Overweight and Beerstained shrugs.

“They named him on account of that’s how he kills his opponents, apparently. Tears ‘em in half with that chainsaw there.”

A wide, excited grin spreads itself across the blubbery folds of Overweight and Beerstained’s face.

“And he ain’t never lost a fight, they say.”

Nico is quiet for a moment. A small voice in the back of his head (which sounds suspiciously like Hazel) tells him in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut, but Nico has never been so good at keeping his mouth shut, not even for Hazel.

“You know what?” he says, turning to Overweight and Beerstained, “I changed my mind. I’m bidding tonight. I have-” he reaches into pockets and mentally counts up the amount of cash he has with him, “-two-hundred dollars in cash. Is that good?” He has five dollars, but he figures it couldn’t hurt to embellish a little. The man grins, a greedy, slimy thing.

“That’ll do, kid. Who’re ya bettin’ on?”

“Perseus.” Nico  replies, serene. Overweight and Beerstained frowns, a crease appearing in the fat between his eyebrows. 

“Who’s that? He new?” Nico smiles, the dim light casting shadows on his thin face and turning him into a skeleton.

“Oh, yes. One time feature, only tonight.”

The crease deepens, the man appears to be thinking. Nico hopes he doesn’t hurt himself. Eventually Overweight and Beerstained shrugs, and holds out a filthy, sweaty hand.

“A’right, kid, you got yourself a deal.”

Nico shakes hands as quickly as he can, then discretely wipes his palms on his jeans. Down in the ring, the Bisector charges his first opponent, a short man with wiry, ropey strength in his ape-like arms and legs. Ape-man puts up a good fight, lands a few punches that would crack ribs on  man with less blubber concealing them, but the Bisector is apparently immune to pain. With a roar like an angry bull, he swings one meaty fist at Ape-man’s head, and the smaller man crumples. The Bisector lets out a scream of triumph, and guns the chainsaw- Nico looks away. The swell of approving noise from the crowd is almost enough to cover the wet sounds of tearing flesh.

“How d’ya like that, kid?” Overweight and Beerstained howls next to him, bobbing up and down in glee. “Might as well fork over that money now!”

Nico just smiles, a secret little smile, and shakes his head.

“Nah, I’ll wait a little longer, if that’s okay with you.”

Four more men fall to the Bisector’s chainsaw in the next twenty minutes. By the time Percy is set to go up, the smell of fresh blood is almost suffocating. As four scantily clad girls enter the ring and begin to rake fresh sand over the bloodstains, Overweight and Beerstained elbows him again.

“This ‘Perseus’ up next?”

Nico hums in answer, eyes trained on challenger’s entrance. When the gate is hoisted up, and a tall figure, clad all in black with a sword strapped to his waist, steps into the ring, there is a long silence. Percy meets Nico’s eyes for a second, and gives him the barest of winks. Overweight and Beerstained explodes in laughter.

“That’s Perseus? That kid’s your trump card? Easiest two-hundred I’ve ever made!”

Nico hums, looking pensive for a moment.

“He’ll make it quick, today, it’s hot and he doesn’t like that.” he says, conversationally.

“What?”

Nico doesn’t answer, just trains his eyes on the ring. The Bisector, bloodstained and towering, charges Percy, chainsaw swinging madly. It happens in the blink of an eye, in the moment just before he overextends his arm. Nico can practically taste it, the savage glee radiating from his friend as Percy ducks underneath the weapon. It’s over after that, it was never a proper fight to begin with, not with Percy Jackson. It takes him maybe thirty seconds to crush the Bisector’s femur, and topple him to the ground. He doesn’t even touch Riptide. The snap of the bone breaking is audible even to Nico, who is sitting in the farthest seats from the ring, but there is something deeply satisfying about the obscene angle of the huge man’s leg. The Bisector is not immune to pain after all, it seems; he thrashes and screams, tears of agony pouring down his fat cheeks, but when Percy slides Riptide from its sheath in one fluid motion and sets the razor edge to his neck he goes still.

“Yield.” Percy says, his green eyes two chips of ice. The spectators are quiet, shocked into tense silence. Nico, who is well-aware of his friend’s No-Kill policy, yawns.

“I forfeit!” the Bisector wails, choking on his own vomit, “I forfeit, please, please-”

Percy slams the hilt of his sword into the man’s head, and he goes limp, sprawled out on the ground like a felled tree.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, WE HAVE A WINNER!” the Ringmaster screams over the microphone, and the audience explodes.

“I’ll be taking that two-hundred now.” Nico says, brightly, turning to the man and holding out a hand. Overweight and Beer-stained, apparently stunned into silence, slaps the money into his hand with a wordless glare.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Nico chirps, and he’s gone before the man can reply, slipping through the crowd like a wraith. He makes it out of the arena, to the alley outside littered with foul trash heaps and beady rat eyes gleaming at him out of the dark, before a body slams into him. He relaxes into it, lets himself be shoved into the brick wall, the rough edges digging into his spine through his thin shirt.

“You’re awfully eager tonight,” he comments, amused, as a hand twists into his hair and wrenches his head back.

“Maybe having you in the ring watching me gets me excited.” Percy murmurs, his voice raspy-deep with lust as he licks a hot stripe up his neck.

“I made us two-hundred bucks tonight, betting on you.” Nico says, a teasing list to his words. 

“Yeah?” Percy mouths the words into the base of his throat, “I thought Hazel told you no more betting after the last time.”

“I don’t care what Hazel thinks,” Nico replies, petulant, “I can take a little risk every now and the- ah!”

Percy sinks his teeth into the smooth curve where his neck meets his shoulder, and _shakes._ Nico goes quiet with a whimper, and Percy licks over the bite, soothing it. When he noses up his neck to kiss him, Nico’s blood is on his tongue. It makes him dizzy as Percy licks into his mouth, hot and wet, his head is spinning and the bite is throbbing and it’s too much. He’s over-sensitized and shaking by the time Percy pulls back with a satisfied little hum.

“C’mon, Neeks.” he says, yanking gently on a strand of Nico’s hair, “Let’s go home.”

“M’kay.” Nico sighs, dazed and sated, and Percy pulls him off into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lot of fancy words for your basic orphan!Percy-and-Nico-live-underground-and-fight-in-gladiator-style-tournaments-for money-and-have-sex-a-lot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason and his goddamn inner narrative.

* * *

i.

Nico startles awake at four thirty-five the next morning, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Percy is sprawled out on top of him, face pressed possessively into the crook of Nico’s neck even in his sleep, legs tangled with his. Nico huffs a small sigh, and attempts to push Percy’s considerable bulk off of him. Percy mutters something and clings tighter.

“Percy,” Nico hisses,

“Mmmm.”

“Percy, get off me. I gotta get up, I gotta go.”

Percy’s eyes squint open, and he rolls off Nico with a groan and flops on his stomach. Nico lingers for a moment at the edge of the bed, gliding the pads of his fingertips across the broad, scarred expanse of Percy’s back, and then he reluctantly climbs out of bed.

“Neeks,” Percy mumbles, face buried in his pillow, “be back by noon or I’m coming after you.”

Nico feels warm in the pit of his stomach.

“Got it, Perce.” he responds, getting his sneakers from where he’d chucked them haphazardly by the bed the night before, and pulling his hair into a small ponytail. He tosses a fond ‘Ciao’ over his shoulder, and slips quietly out the door

 

ii. 

If Percy is tall, Nico is short.

If Percy laughs like he lives, unrestrained and carefree, Nico laughs like a child who has been locked up so long they’ve almost forgotten how.

If Percy is light, light with everything he is, Nico is dark.

If Percy leads, Nico follows.

If Percy fights, Nico is there to guard his back.

 

 iii.

 

The street lamps are just beginning to come on, the artificial moonlight fading, when Nico climbs nimbly over a brick wall five blocks from their little apartment room in the empty complex. Circuit 5 was flooded with poisonous gas ten years ago after an explosion rigged by the Resistance, and had to be evacuated. Now it's mostly ruins and abandoned buildings, but the Arenas are massive and people from the outer circuits creep in once the lamps go out to signal night. The place has rebuilt, but the population is still tiny, maybe three or four thousand people at most. 

The setup works out well for Percy and Nico, though, because Arenas are the only way they have of earning money, other than prostitution, and that didn’t exactly work out so great for Nico the first time around. He’s not going back, not ever, for Percy’s sake.

So Percy fights, sticks to one Arena for as long as he can, until people start to notice him. Then he collects his winnings and they disappear. They can’t stay in one place for very long, and there aren’t enough Arenas in Circuit 5 to keep them going forever, especially since they’ve been here a year now, but soon maybe they’ll have enough money to buy passage to Circuit 4. Things will be easier there. Nico hopes things will be easier there. 

Hazel won’t be home this early in the morning, the crowd at the Arena was a lot bigger than usual last night and her shift will last for another good two hours or so. Nico moves down the brick lined dirt path that runs through the middle of Hazel’s tiny garden, and crouches by the fourth brick on the left. He glances around him, and then lifts up the brick and swiftly pockets the white envelope underneath. He checks the battered up old watch Percy got him for his twelfth birthday and he’s running fifteen minutes ahead of schedule; which means he has time to visit the King once, before he makes his delivery. He can make it if he runs. And Nico loves to run.

 

IV. 

 

On the fourth day after his mother’s death, Nico thought he might as well die too. His mother’s body was starting to smell, but he didn’t think he could move his legs even if he wanted to. He curled up next to the corpse, shut his eyes, and drifted. When he heard it, he could have been lying there for minutes or for days.

“Hey.”

A voice. 

“Hey, kid.”

Maybe if Nico ignored it, it would go away.

“Is that your mom? She smells.”

A hand descended on his shoulder and shook him roughly.

“Hey, stupid, are you just gonna sit here until you die?”

Nico, eyes still closed, nodded. There was a pause.

“C’mon, you can’t do that.” The voice is gentler now, “I bet your mom wouldn't have wanted you to die here-”

Nico’s eyes flew open. He hurled himself at the boy crouched in front of him before he could think, snarling and spitting like a cat, clawing and punching at the boy with all the strength left in his withered little body.

“You don’t KNOW THAT!” he screamed, his voice hoarse from days of disuse, “You don’t know what she would have wanted! YOU DIDN'T KNOW HER!”

The boy grabbed his skinny wrists in one hand and pulled him firmly into his lap. Nico was still fighting, kept fighting until the boy fisted a hand in Nico’s hair and wrenched his head back against his shoulder.

“Calm down.” he said, softly, into Nico’s ear, “You're gonna hurt yourself. Calm down, okay? Just breathe. Breathe with me. I know you know how.”

Nico’s struggling stopped. He had used up his last reserves of energy anyway, and there was something soothing about the boy’s voice, something friendly. He stilled, and concentrated on taking deep breathes, in and out. Minutes passed before the boy finally let go of Nico and allowed him to climb off his lap. Nico peered up him from under ragged black bangs, and opaque dark eyes met electric green.

“I’m Percy,” the boy said, carefully, “you got a name?”

“Nico.” he whispered.

“And how old are you, Nico?” 

“Eight.”

Percy nodded. 

“Okay, well, I’m twelve, and that makes me older than you, so you gotta do whatever I say, got that?”

Nico’s eyes widened, and he nodded, cowed by this display of rank. Percy rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a little packet of crackers.

“First thing I say, is you have to eat this.”

He held it out. Nico stared at it, blinked, and looked up at Percy like the minute he reached for it it would be snatched away.

“You can take it, I’m not gonna do anything.” Percy coaxed, and Nico swallowed his mistrust for once in his comparatively short life and took the food. He tore open the package with his teeth and devoured the food like an animal, licking the crumbs off his fingers when it had all vanished down his throat. Percy whistled slowly. 

“When’s the last time you ate anything?” he asked, eyes sweeping over Nico and cataloging the sunken cheeks and the razor-blade collarbones.

“Mama found half a loaf of bread in the trash before she couldn’t walk anymore.” Nico muttered.

“And how long ago was that?”

“Dunno.”

Percy lapsed into silence for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. 

“Okay,” he said suddenly, nodding to himself like he was arriving at a decision, “you're coming with me.”

Nico was confused. Nobody but his mother had ever cared before about where he went or what he did. Why did this boy with the strange green eyes?

“I like you.” Percy said, as if reading Nico’s mind. He stood, brushed off his worn out jeans, and held out his hand.

“Come on.”

Nico hesitated, then crawled back over to stare down at his mother’s face for the last time. He kissed her cold, dead cheek, and unclasped the locket from around her neck, the one with the only picture she had of Nico’s father. He fastened it around his own small neck, and reached up and took Percy’s hand. As the older boy led him away, for the first time in four days, Nico felt warm again.

 

 V.

 

The King stands in the center of the old subway station, built back before the walls went up, when passage from one Circuit to another was as easy as climbing on a train. The place is littered with huge chunks of rubble from the ceiling caving in, but the King stands tall and proud, an ancient monument to a forgotten time. Nico knows the places where time and the elements have worn hand and footholds into the surface of the stone, and he climbs it with ease, scrambling up the colossal statue to perch comfortably on the shoulder. The view from the King is beautiful; Nico can look out over the tops of the buildings and see lights twinkling as far away as the eye can see. His watch beeps, and he glances down at it in disappointment. Time to go. He climbs back to the ground with ease, and pauses a moment to look up at the stern, proud face, forever captured by a master’s hand. 

A noise like someone kicking a rock startles him, and he whirls around, heart pounding inside his chest, but he doesn't see anything, and he doesn't hear the sound again. He shakes his head and slips into the shadows at the edge of the rubble.

 

 VI.

 

Imagine this: your name is Jason Grace, you are seventeen years old, and you are entirely alone except for a sister (who is long, long gone), and a best friend (who’s a little odd). There is a statue, surrounded by ruin, that you pass by sometimes on your way to work; the statue of a king whose name has long been forgotten. Sometimes the statue is alone. Sometimes, there is The Boy. You don’t know his name, or anything about him; he looks younger than you, at least, but you don’t know. You do know that he is slender, and that his skin is olive dark. You know that he has silky hair and a mouth that quirks up on one side. You know that his eyes are like a word that you search for all your life. You think maybe your inner narrative is getting a bit out of hand.

The point is, The Boy is beautiful, perched on the statue with a faraway expression painted across his features. You don't suppose you'll ever see him again, if he stops visiting his marble friend. The thought makes you sad, in the way that looking at stars makes you sad, because you can't ever touch them, no matter how lovely they are. You're really going to have to do something about your inner narrative.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'He wears orange shirts,  
> I'm an asshole,  
> He's got a sword  
> and I'm still an asshole.
> 
> Baby can't you seeeeeee...'

* * *

i.

Jason taps his pencil against his cheek, staring down at the notebook in front of him with narrow blue eyes.

“This isn’t right...” he mutters to himself, smudging a line and redoing it. Everything else looks good, the lines of the cheekbones are clean, the hair looks appropriately soft, but Jason can’t quite seem to get the eyes right, and he doesn’t have a lot of time between shifts. He’s not on call right now, but that doesn’t mean much here. 

Predictably, just at that moment, a scream echoes in the hallway outside the door, tapering off to a gurgling moan. Jason sighs and puts his sketchpad away, pulling on his gloves and laying a fresh sheet down over the operating table, just in case. They haven’t been getting too many serious injuries in here lately, but if there’s one thing working at the clinic has taught Jason, it’s to always be prepared.

The door explodes inward, and Chiron hurries through, blood-stains spreading themselves across his white coat, followed closely by one of the nurses lugging a writhing body.

“Lay him down over there,” Chiron barks, gesturing tersely as the table, “Jason!”

Jason springs into action, helping the nurse ease the groaning man down to lie on his back on the table.

“Knife wound. Get his shirt off,” Chiron orders, yanking bandage tape and painkillers from the second shelf, “He’s going to need stitches.”

Jason nods, snatching a pair of scissors from under the table and cutting the bloody shirt off the man’s torso. He winces at the deep gash stretching across his stomach, fluttering a little with every ragged breath the man takes. Jason is pretty sure he can see entrails. He looks away and goes for the disinfectant.

 

ii. 

The man is sleeping restlessly on the table an hour later, as Chiron packs up for the night.

“Give him another dose before you head out, okay, kid?” Chiron says gruffly, exiting before Jason has a chance to reply. He sighs and goes to get a clean syringe.

“Jason! Jason, dude, I gotta talk to you-” 

Jason’s best friend charges through the door, skids a little, and somehow manages to avoid crashing into the cabinets. Jason sighs again, locating a vein in the patient’s arm and carefully inserting the needle.

“Okay, I know that sigh,” Leo says, rolling his eyes, “that’s the patented Jason Grace ‘Wow Leo this is probably a bad time’ sigh.”

Jason grins, despite himself.

“You can differentiate between my sighs?”

Leo shrugs his boney shoulders.

“I’ve known you for four years, it would be a little disappointing if I couldn’t.”

Jason disposes of the syringe and moves to the sink to wash his hands. 

“What do you need, Leo?”

“Have you heard about what’s happening at the Arena on Thursday?”

Jason frowns.“I don’t really hear much of anything out here, no. Why?”

Leo drops down into one of the chairs with a thud and pulls out his favorite lighter (he has at least thirty, but Jason sees him with this one the most), thumbing it open and closed.

“Apparently there’s this guy who’s been showing up there lately, and he’s been kicking everyone’s asses. Nobody can beat him.”

Jason raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”

“Seriously dude, they say he hasn’t lost a fight. He took down the Bisector, Hammerhead, and Lady Pain.”

Jason, despite himself, is a little impressed. But-

“Okay, that’s cool, but what does it have to do with... anything, really?”

Leo’s deep brown eyes light up from the inside, which is never a good sign.

“Apparently they’re paying _triple_ what they usually do to anyone who can take him down.”

Jason feels his eyes widen.

“Triple?”

Leo, solemn for once, nods his curly head.

“Jason, with that much money, I can finally get my hands on those parts I’ve been needing. And you know what that means.”

Jason feels like all the breath has suddenly and mysteriously been sucked out of his lungs.

“It means our ticket out of here.” he whispers, hoarse and overwhelmed.

“I know you hate fighting, Jason,” Leo pleads, leaning forward, dark eyes boring into blue, “and I wouldn't ask if there was any other way. But you and I both know you can do this. You’re good, the best. You can beat this guy easy.”

Jason is quiet for a moment. He uncurls his hands from where he has unconsciously fisted them in the fabric of his jeans. For a moment, he thinks he can see red smeared across them.

“I thought maybe I could start over, you know?” he tells Leo, quietly, “I thought maybe I could do something good with these hands. But I guess- well, once a killer always a killer.”

And Leo, who knows Jason better than anyone else ever has, and better than anyone ever will (except one, but she is gone gone gone), stands up from his chair with fire crackling in his eyes and knocks his forehead against Jason’s. 

“You listen to me, Jason motherfucking Grace,” he growls, digging his spindly fingers into the grooves between Jason’s jaw and ear and shaking lightly, “you are the best friend I have ever had. You saved me, okay? You saved me, dude. So don’t give me that bullshit about your hands or whatever, because I will personally set you on fire and toss you out a window!”

The tightness in Jason’s chest eases up a little, and not for the first time, he thanks the gods that be, whoever they are, for his offbeat, sometimes manic, always loyal best friend.

“Besides,” Leo says after a moment of comfortable silence, “you don’t actually have to kill the dude, just get him to forfeit.”

Jason grins.

“Now _that_ should be easy.”

 

 

 iii.

Nico doesn't worry much. To tell the truth, he doesn’t have a lot of people in his life that he loves enough to worry about; his mama and his sister (both dead), Percy (who can take down fifteen men with a dislocated arm, Nico has seen him do it), and Hazel (who has Frank). Worrying about himself is something Nico has only recently started doing, and he isn’t very good at it yet.

Right now, however, Nico thinks he is becoming intimately acquainted with worrying. Way more intimate, actually, than he is comfortable with, thank you very much. 

“Percy, you should sit down or something...” he begs, out of options at this point.

“Nico, quit nagging me, I’m fine. I’m just a little overheated.” Percy says, carelessly, shirtless and sweating. Nico had been curled up like a kitten in the court-yard out back of the apartment building, reading a book, and Percy had been gliding effortlessly through forms with Riptide. Nico had looked up just in time to see him confuse his footing and trip. Nico had never seen Percy stumble like that. 

“Percy!” he cries, dropping his book and going to help the other boy up.

“It’s fine, Neeks,” Percy says again, chuckling and wiping his face with his discarded shirt. Nico presses a hand to his forehead surreptitiously, but he can’t tell if the heat is from the exercise, or something else. Percy’s green eyes had been unusually glassy this morning, but Nico had dismissed it, written it off as lack of sleep despite the fact that Percy had been complaining about a bad headache two days before.

“Let’s head back,” Percy says, rolling his eyes in amusement, “I don’t know about you, but I could use some water right about now.”

Nico nods dumbly, watching Percy walk away, and he can’t help but think back to the last person he had known who’d complained about headaches for days and stumbled over nothing.

“No.” he whispers into the empty space, as if by saying it he can will it to be true

 

 

 iv.

“Maybe you shouldn't fight tonight,” he tells Percy two days later, frowning, “I’ve been hearing from Hazel, apparently way more people are showing up tonight than usual for a chance at the prize money.”

“We’ll be fine,” Percy says, dressed all in black, lacing up his shoes, “This is the last one. We collect the extra money, and get the fuck out of here. It’ll be fine.”

“We haven’t been careful enough,” Nico argues, “I don’t like it. The whole point of Arena jumping was to keep our heads down-”

He’s cut off by Percy, who fists a big hand in his hair and yanks him up on his tiptoes to kiss him.

“Would. You. Stop. Worrying?” Percy rumbles, in between the little nips and licks he lavishes on Nico’s mouth.

Nico, wrapping his arms around Percy’s neck and whining desperately, can't think straight, doesn't have enough room left in his overheated brain for worry.

“I’ll make this all up to you tonight, I promise.” Percy says, breathing into his ear. He reaches down and grabs Nico’s ass with both hands, dragging him bodily up his thigh. Nico lets out a strangled gasp as the friction starbursts at his nerve endings, and buries his face in the crook of Percy’s neck.

“Okay.” he mouthes into Percy’s skin, and Percy strokes a hand soothingly up Nico’s back in response. Nico is too lost in a haze of lust to notice that the hand is shaking.

 

 v.

Nico had been right about one thing, the Arena is crowded tonight. Nico wouldn't mind so much, he usually likes big crowds - it’s easier to be invisible in the middle of them - but tonight he’s uneasy, and he can’t shake it. He takes advantage of his size to worm his way through the crowd to the front, near the wall that separates the audience from the actual ring, hoping to avoid another encounter with Overweight and Beerstained if at all possible.

The air is still and hot, the pungent odor that usually permeates the building made even worse by the amount of people jam-packed inside. Nico has to stand on his tiptoes to see anything at all, which prompts his inner Percy to start making height jokes. Why Nico has an inner Percy at all is beyond him, one is hard enough to deal with as it is. The evening starts off slow, the crowd clearly restless as the small fry tear each-other to pieces in the ring. Nico gets the feeling they’re all here for the same reason he is. To see the main event. 

He’s proved right the moment Percy walks into the ring for his first match; the entire audience swells and roars. Nico frowns. Normally Percy would be basking in this much attention, ever the people-pleaser. But tonight something seems... off. Wrong. Nico feels it, sees it as the gong sounds and Percy begins to fight. 

Nico trains his eyes as Percy fights his way through three men and a woman. On the fifth opponent, he sees it. Percy stumbles, just a little, a minuscule mistake that he quickly makes up for by ending his fight with brutal efficiency, but it's there. Percy is... tired. He’s tiring quickly, he’s making mistakes, this isn’t right, none of this is right. Still- Nico glances down at the sheet in his hand, Percy only has one challenger left, and it’s no one Nico’s ever heard of. With a little luck, it’ll be a quick take-down, and Nico can get Percy home to-

The gates at the other end of the ring go up, and the final competitor moves out into the light. Nico’s breath catches in his throat. The boy standing there is young, Percy’s age maybe, tall and well muscled, and he is a _predator._ Nico knows hunters when he sees them, Percy is one, his father, what little he remembers of him, was one. The blond flicks icy blue eyes over Percy, raising the long golden lance he is balancing easily in his hands, and a fine tremor starts up in Nico’s hands. Percy can’t win this fight, not in the state he’s in. Percy won’t win. 

For a moment, time swells out around Nico and he is frozen, caught in a bubble world staring at the blond. Then the gong sounds, startling him out of his stupor, and the fight begins. Percy holds his own at first, despite his fatigue, but it is readily apparent to Nico that his condition is worsening. Percy is sick, very sick, and Nico will never forgive himself because he'd seen the symptoms. He knew what it was. And he’d done nothing to stop Percy from coming here tonight. Percy blocks a vicious thrust from the lance, but only barely, and his legs are shaking. Percy swings Riptide, but it’s too much, he’s over-reaching in his exhaustion, sweat pouring down his face. The blond darts in with frightening speed, and sweeps Percy’s legs out from underneath him. Percy crashes to his knees, face pale and drawn. He’s not getting back up this time. The blonde raises his lance.

Nico’s scream is lost in the roar from the crowd, and he is moving before he can stop himself, before he can think, scrambling over the wall separating him from Percy like a spider, and dropping down eight feet to land in the sand. The impact sends dull waves of pain shooting up his legs, but he ignores it, flying across the ring to grab Riptide from the sand where it had been knocked from Percy’s hand. He leaps in between the two, sword held high, and blocks the blond’s strike as it comes down.

“STOP!” 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason Grace writes an autobiography. 
> 
> The title is 'My Inner Narrative Is A Useless Fucking Paperclip'.
> 
> (in case any of you were wondering when badass!Nico was going to make an appearance)  
> (wonder no longer)  
> (he's been here the whole time)

* * *

i.

“STOP!”

The Arena goes still, a hush falling over it faster than a tidal wave. The blonde stumbles back a little, retracting his lance. His blue eyes are wide and stunned, an expression on his face that Nico can’t quite decipher- something like recognition. 

“He’s sick,” Nico snarls, shifting his stance to stand protectively in front of Percy’s fallen body, “anybody can see that. Let him be.”

His grip on Riptide tightens until his knuckles are white.

“I will fight you in his place.”

His voice carries in the still air, and a murmur starts up in the crowd like a live-wire. Nico knows what they think they see. He’s always been too skinny, too short, prey, not predator. He’s always had an imitate understanding of how others look at him. He’s always known how to play it to his advantage.

“Let me fight you,” he says urgently, staring down those icy eyes, “the rules allow it if you agree. Or,” Nico pauses, adjusting his volume slightly to be sure he is heard by the crowd, “are you afraid you’ll lose?”

There is a rumble from the audience, all eyes turning to the blond. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t refuse Nico now. His blue eyes narrow, and he looks Nico up and down.

“What’s your name, kid?” he calls, and Nico suppresses a grin. Hook, line and sinker.

“Nico di Angelo,” he calls back, “and you?”

“I’m Jason Grace,” the blond says, pulling his lance up and sliding into a fighting stance, “and I would be honored if you fought me in his place.”

Nico gives Jason a short nod, and crouches down by Percy, who is looking worse by the second.

“Nico, what’re you-” he slurs, face pale and drawn.

Nico cuts him off with a kiss to the cheek and stands, hefting Riptide.

“Sorry, Percy, looks like I’ll have to take over on this one. Don’t worry about me, though,” he throws a grin over his shoulder, “I always could kick your ass.”

Riptide feels heavy and awkward in his hands, nothing like the smaller, more graceful weapons Nico is used to, but he doesn’t mind much. A sword is a sword. He moves away from Percy, and squares off with Jason. The crowd is visibly excited now, this bizarre turn of events stirring up their interest. Nico raises Riptide and salutes, Jason does the same. Black eyes meet blue. The gong sounds. 

 

 

ii.

Jason raises his lance, fairly sure it will be up to him to make the first move. Nico holds the other boy’s sword like he knows what he’s doing, but he can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen, surely in terms of combat experience-

Nico grins at him, something vicious sparking in the depths of his eyes, and _explodes_. There’s no other word for it. Jason has been fighting since he was twelve years old, and he’s never seen anybody move that fast. It’s all he can do to get his lance up in time to protect himself before Nico is spinning into him like a small tornado. The sword he’s holding is obviously too heavy for him, but as he swings around and comes about two centimeters from eviscerating Jason, he realizes that it doesn’t really matter. This kid is good. 

They seem pretty evenly matched, and the trade of blows, the back and forth fluidity of fighting someone who can more than hold their own against him is exhilarating to Jason. He can tell Nico feels it too. But, Leo needs this prize money (if the money is even still applicable, now that he’s fighting Nico instead), or they’re never getting out of this place. Jason wants to see his sister again someday. It’s time to end this. Nico is small and lightning fast, but Jason has the advantage in terms of height and sheer muscle mass. He knocks Nico’s sword aside, gets in close, and strong-arms him to the ground, keeping him pinned with his lance across his throat.

“Looks like I win,” he pants, grinning down at Nico. Nico grins back, his eyes dancing in a way that says ‘ _You’ve fallen for my clever ruse, you plebeian fool.’._ Or maybe that’s Jason’s inner narrative talking, sometimes it’s really hard to differentiate-

“I’m not so sure,” Nico says, and Jason registers something sharp against the tender skin of his stomach. He looks down. Nico has somehow managed to slip his sword under the weak spot in his armor. One thrust and Jason could probably say goodbye to most of his intestines. Inner narrative: 1, Jason: 0. He looks back at Nico’s face, covered in dirt and minor cuts, dark hair plastered to his face with sweat, a manic grin spread across his sharp face, and thinks he’s never seen anything so beautiful.

“Truce?” he says, hesitantly removing the lance from Nico’s throat. Nico pulls his sword back in response, and takes the hand Jason extends to scramble to his feet.

“Truce.” he replies, casually, and there is a speculative light in his eyes now when he looks at Jason, something that might say ‘friend’.

“AND A TRUCE IS CALLED.” the Ringmaster bellows over the speakers, “IT LOOKS LIKE NO ONE WILL BE TAKING HOME THE PRIZE MONEY TONIGHT.”

Jason winces a little, internally. Leo is probably going to hang and quarter him. He looks back to Nico, only to find him running to the other boy, the green-eyed one. Jason follows behind and kneels cautiously next to Nico on the sand. 

“Percy? Percy!” Nico is shaking his friend’s shoulder, a note of panic in his voice. When Jason crouches down by him, the other boy eyes him suspiciously. Jason does his best to look reassuring.

“It’s okay, I work as a doctor’s aid. I might be able to figure out what’s wrong with him.”

The hope that flares up in the other boy’s face makes Jason feel warm in the pit of his stomach.

“My clinic isn’t too far from here. Can you help me get him there?”

Jason sees Nico’s mistrust warring with the desire to help his friend. Percy moans, and the desperation wins out. 

“Okay, Grace,” Nico growls, “but so help me, if this is some kind of underhanded trick I will disembowel you with your own thigh bone. Grab his legs.”

 

 

iii.

Between the two of them, Nico and Jason manage to lug Percy into the clinic, and get him settled in one of the spare patient rooms. Percy is now in the throes of fever, shivering and babbling about things neither of them can see, occasionally interspersed with a ‘Nico’ or ‘Mom’. Jason gets an IV drip set up for fluids, just in case, and gives him some antibiotics to help with the fever, but he’s in a bad way. It takes a stronger dose of meds than it should for the desired effect to kick in, and by the time Percy settles into a somewhat peaceful sleep, the lines of pain smoothed from his face, Jason is pretty sure the worried creases in between Nico’s eyebrows are permanent.

Jason pulls up a chair next to Nico, who is curled up on Percy’s bed with his back to the wall and his knees drawn to his chest, his dark eyes flickering over Percy’s face like if he looks away he’ll disappear.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Jason says, slowly, unsure if comfort is Nico’s thing or not. The look the other boy shoots him is inscrutable and fathomless. Apparently _not_. There is a short silence, and then Nico heaves a sigh and looks away. 

“My mom died when I was eight.”

Jason freezes, mouth half open, staring at Nico, who quirks his eyebrow and scowls.

“Don’t look at me like that, I don’t want your fucking sympathy. I dare you to find a kid around here whose mother _isn’t_ dead.”

Jason concedes he has a point.

“Anyway,” Nico continues, picking at a loose string on his ratty black shirt, “she had a bad headache for a couple of says, then she was fine. Two days later, she had a fever. It got so bad she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t eat. Then she was dead. In less than five days.”

Nico goes quiet. Jason is holding his breath, hardly daring to believe that this boy who has just met him is trusting him with this.

“I don’t like watching people I care about die.” Nico mutters at last, ducking his head down.

“How’d you guys meet?” Jason asks after a couple of minutes, “If that’s not too personal of a question,”

Nico reaches out and trails his fingertips lightly across Percy’s hand.

“He found me, after my mom died. Took me back to live with his mom. Sally was,” Nico smiles, the happiest smile Jason has seen from him, “she was amazing. Everything she cooked was blue. She never told me why, but it was amazing. Just like her.”

“Where is she now?” Jason asks, quietly.

“Dead.” says Nico, simply. “There was an explosion. Percy-” he stiffens and shakes his head a little. “Nevermind. Forget it.”

Jason is a little disappointed, but smart enough to change the subject.

“So you guys are kind of like brothers, then,” he says.

Nico chuckles, and there is something sinful about the curve of his mouth.

“Sure. Brothers.”

Somehow, Jason is getting the feeling that he’s a little off-base here, but his inner narrative is not providing him with any help this time around. 

“So.” Nico says, casually, leaning his head back against the wall, “Jason Grace. What’s your deal? Do you have a deal?”

“Not really,” Jason says with a shrug, “I live on my own, I’m seventeen, I stitch people up for a living.”

Nico tilts his head to the side (something that is, as Jason’s inner narrative is once again happy to point out, ridiculously adorable), and runs his eyes up and down Jason like he can see into his soul.

“No you don’t,” he murmurs, calculating, “or at least; you haven’t always. You fight too well for someone who only knows how to save lives.”

Jason’s heartbeat feels erratic in his chest, and he is conscious of a bead of sweat sliding down the back of his neck. Was it possible- did Nico know? Nico smiles a little, and the searchlights in his eyes shut off.

“Relax, Grace, this isn’t the spanish inquisition. I don’t care about shit like that. I’ve got enough secrets, you’re entitled to keep yours.”

And with that, Nico goes quiet, lacing his fingers through Percy’s in a decidedly un-brotherly way (where is that goddam inner narrative when he needs it?). Jason senses the conversation is over.

“You can stay here with him tonight, if you want, I’ll come back tomorrow to see how he’s doing.”

Nico gives him a slight nod, not looking up from Percy’s sleeping face. Jason shuts the door quietly behind him. Nico is a paradox wrapped inside a mystery, and so much more interesting than Jason could ever have imagined, looking at him from afar. He shoves his hands into his pockets, and feels cool metal. He pulls out one of Leo’s screws, and realization hits him. He is, in all likelihood, headed towards death at the hands of an angry 5’6 latino pixie. Not the way Jason had imagined going out, but there are worse ways. Probably. Jason heads for home.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anybody was really curious about what Jason is even doing in this story in the first place.

* * *

 

Jason's life, in moments.

 

i.

“You screw up one more time, Grace, and Thalia’s little brother or not, I will rip your fucking throat out with my teeth.”

Luke looked like he might do it, too, eyes flashing, lips pulled back around a snarl. Jason took an involuntary step backwards, his ever present survival instincts screaming at him to deflate, to shrink himself down and pacify his leader.

“Luke!” 

And Thalia was there, an angry, uncouth guardian angel with ragged hair and combat boots.

“Back the fuck off, it wasn’t his fault!”

“Wasn’t his fault?” Luke said, soft, deadly, turning to face Thalia, “He almost cost us the entire raid, not to mention all the people we had stationed in the building, because he couldn’t kill the guard they had posted!”

“She was just a little kid,” Jason pleaded, desperate to make Luke understand, to redeem himself, “she was only a year younger than me, I couldn’t-”

“Yes, you could.” Luke cut him off, his rage flickering down to a low simmer, like it always did when Thalia was on the scene. “How many people have you killed in the last month alone? Ten? Twenty? You got red on your hands, Grace. It’s a little late to be getting squeamish about it.”

“But those people weren’t kids!” Jason protested in disbelief, “We’re supposed to be fighting to save people, that’s why you started the resistance in the first place! What part of that includes slaughtering children?”

Luke’s face softened slightly, and he rubbed at his eyes and looked, for a moment, like nothing more than what he appeared to be; an exhausted teenager with too much weight on his shoulders.

“Look, Jason, I get it,” he said, exhaling harshly, “What we do, it’s not pretty in any sense of the word. But our cause, what we’re fighting to achieve, is more important than the lives of a few civilians along the way. War always comes with casualties, and we’re fighting a war.”

His blue eyes went steely again, and he straightened up.

“So get over your bleeding heart, or get out. Your choice.”

He turned sharply on his heel and strode away, barking orders. Jason shut his eyes and pressed the meat of his palms against them so hard that a starburst of colors appeared on the darkness behind his lids.

“Jase-” Thalia set a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her, blue eyes meeting blue.

“Don’t.” he said through gritted teeth, shaking off her hand, “Just- don’t.”

He turned on his heel and strode away, shoving his hands violently into his pockets. Some part of him, some nagging little deep down part, whispered that Luke was right. His conscience was picking a funny time to have a reawakening, and besides that, he owed Luke; owed him for taking he and Thalia in when they had nothing, owed him for putting a sword in his scrawny, ten year-old hands and saying, “Learn.”

Luke had spared him as long as he could, for Thalia’s sake, but Jason was thirteen now, and he’d been going on patrols for two years. Killing people for two years. If he wasn’t used to it by now, would he ever be? He turned his eyes up the the streetlamp above him, but there were no answers there. There never had been.

A noise echoed faintly out of the alley to his right, and Jason paused, listening. Yeah, there it was again, a whimper. Some kind of animal, maybe? Jason moved cautiously over to the opening and pushed a few cardboard boxes out of the way. He took a sharp little whistling breath in through his teeth. Not an animal. A woman, a gaunt, shivering woman with a skeleton face, plastered in dirt and lying limp beneath some old newspapers. A dull spark of fear flared to life in those sunken eyes when she saw Jason standing over her, but she was too weak, too close to death, to move. She was covered with ants, Jason noticed, a little sick, like even the bugs knew she was done for.

“Hello,” he said, so gently, as gently as he possibly could, and he reached down very slowly to brush the ants off the woman in disgust.

“Is there anybody I can find to help you? Any family?”

Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. That faint light in the woman’s eyes went out again. Jason knelt down and carefully maneuvered the top half of her body into his lap, the small, bird-thin body painfully easy to lift.

“I’ll wait here with you till they come back, okay?” he declared staunchly, and the woman turned her head in the crook of Jason’s elbow to stare up at him with glazed, liquid dark eyes. Jason held her gaze firmly, and the corners of the woman’s cracked mouth turned up. Not quite a smile, but close enough.

“Esperanza.” she sighed, more a breath than anything.

“That’s your name?” Jason asked. She nodded, the slight movement seeming to drain what little energy she had left.

“My son.” she whispered, lifting a trembling hand to touch Jason’s cheek. He felt a hot little pang of sorrow in his stomach.

“No, ma’am, I’m so sorry. I’m not your son.”

The woman shook her head weakly.

“Please. Find... my son-”

Jason clasped her hand in his, a fierce instinct to help taking over.

“I’ll do what I can, Esperanza, I promise. You just get some rest, you hear me?”

Esperanza nodded, her thin face peaceful, and her eyes slid shut. Jason felt the smile crumble off his face, but he ignored the wetness in his eyes. He wrapped his arms tighter around her and held on, as her breathing rattled inside her chest, slowed, and finally stopped.

“I promise,” Jason whispered, and he gathered the body in his arms and stood.

 

When Thalia swung open her door and saw him standing there, she didn’t say a word. She yanked him inside and pulled him onto her lap on the tiny bed, curling herself around him like she used to do when they were kids. She didn’t say anything, not even when Jason pressed his forehead to her collarbone and shook. If she noticed the rapidly growing wet spot on the front of her shirt, she didn’t say anything about that, either.

 

ii.

“This is the arena we’re targeting,” Luke said grimly, the dim light in the meeting room painting the angles of his face in sharp contrast. He stabbed his pointer finger on the map in front of him, at the small red circle. That was a Luke trademark, doing everything as angrily as he possibly could. 

“We know for a fact they’ve been forcing kids to fight here, for sport.” Luke took a shuddering breath, “Little kids, sometimes as young as five or six years old. We also know for a fact that Lord Death is going to be present tonight, you can thank Ethan for that inside information.”

Ethan Nakamura, shrouded in shadow as usual in the corner of the room, nodded once, but Thalia was frowning in her place beside Luke.

“No, not possible. This is Circuit 5, Lord Death never comes out this far. He sticks to the three inner circuits, you know that.” Jason nodded a little, in agreement.

“You calling me a liar?” Ethan said, quiet and poisonous.

“Maybe I am.” Thalia shot back, blue eyes flashing in a way that spelled danger for anyone who dared argue.

“Thalia,” Luke warned, and she reluctantly took a step back and fell silent again.

“I understand that this might seem like false intel, but it is reliable.” Luke pulled a few pictures out of his coat pocket and threw them on the table. The images were blurry, but they showed a tall man getting out of a sleek black car, surrounded by body-guards. 

“That could be anybody,” Jason spoke up, a little skeptical. Luke shook his head.

“No, it’s him. Look at this one,” he tapped a picture that had obviously been taken a little closer. Clearly visible on the man’s right hand was a silver ring, shaped like a skull, glinting on his middle finger.

Jason felt the breath whoosh out of his lungs.

“No fucking way...” he muttered. Thalia elbowed him, sharp points digging into his side.

“Watch your mouth, punk.” she hissed

“Like you’re one to talk, jerk.” he grumbled back.

“Okay, so, here’s out game plan people,” Luke was saying, “we split into two tag teams. Thalia and I will take the first squad, codename Alpha, infiltrate the Arena while the first match is taking place, and get the kids out of there. Jason, you and Ethan will take the second squad, codename Beta, and line the building with explosives here,” he traced a line on the map with his finger, “and here. You will fall back and find cover, and wait for my signal. When the signal comes, you will detonate the bombs and get the fuck out of there. The plan is to simultaneously free the kids, and send Lord Death back to hell, where he belongs. Are we clear?”

Luke looked up from the map and glanced around the room.

“Any questions? Good. Get some rest, we head out tonight at ten. Be ready.”

 

“Remember that time you saw one of mom’s old glamor photos, and decided you wanted to be a ‘pretty lady’ too?”

Jason groaned, lifting his head up a little and thumping it back onto his sister’s stomach. 

“Don’t remind me,” he mumbled.

“So I got one of mom’s wigs and some lipstick and you put on her heels but they were too big-”

“Thalia, I swear to fucking god-”

“And we tied that sheet around you like a dress-”

“THALIA!” Jason howled, turning around and lunging for his sister. Thalia was faster though, always had been, and she got in close and dug her fingers into his sides. Jason froze for a moment, the corners of his mouth trembling, desperately trying to remain in control. Thalia smirked and moved in for his weak spot, right above his ribs, and Jason instantly and humiliatingly lost the battle. He fell over backwards with a scream of laughter, squirming desperately and trying to wriggle away, but Thalia was relentless.

“Thalia-” he gasped, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes, “Thalia- stop- I can’t breathe I can’t breathe-”

 Thalia let him go with a laugh, flopping down on her back next to her heaving, panting brother.

“We should probably be sleeping...” she mused.

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to,” he said. Thalia doesn’t say anything for a moment or two, and then she nudges him gently in the side.

“Sorry, Jase.” she said, quietly, her hand finding his and squeezing.

“Sorry for what?” he questioned, glancing at his sister from the corner of his eye.

“Sorry for bringing you here.”

Jason sat up a little, frowning.

“What? Why are you sorry for that? This place is the best thing that’s ever happened to us,”

“Maybe for me, Jason, but not for you.” Thalia sat up too, leaning forward and taking his face in both her hands.

“Listen to me, baby brother,” she said, digging her fingers gently into the grooves between his jaw and ear and looking him straight in the eyes, “you aren’t cut out for this kind of life.”

Jason’s mouth felt dry and sticky, his tongue too large inside it to speak properly.

“You’re too- good? Kind. You weren’t meant to kill. I mean, in another life I could even see you being a doctor or something, you know?”

Jason swallowed, once, and opened his mouth to speak, but Thalia cut him off.

“And it’s my fault, and I’m so sorry, because I didn’t want to let you go. I wanted to keep you here, with me, to protect you, because if anything ever happened to you, I don’t-”

Her face scrunched up a little, like it always did when Thalia was trying not to cry.

“And I know you’re not happy here, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for not being able to let you go-”

“Thalia, no-” Jason stammered, horrified, reaching out to hug his sister as tightly as he possibly could, “I am happy, I’m happy wherever you are-”  

A knock startled them both out of each-other's arms, and Silena’s head appeared around the door.

“Luke told me to come get you guys,” she said grimly, “it’s time.”

 

iii.

The problem with these kind of missions, Jason thought, was that if something went wrong (and something usually did) it always seemed to be HIS job to fix it.

“JASON, DO SOMETHING! Silena screamed, she and Charles bracing themselves against the door, “We can’t hold them back much longer!”

“Working on it!” Jason, shot back, tightly, “Ethan, go help them brace the door.”

Ethan gave him a curt nod and darted off.

“Luke,” Jason hissed through the comm link, “We are trapped inside the building, and these bombs are set to detonate in less than five minutes. GET US OUT OF HERE.”

“Working on it,” Luke replied, sounding panicked, “I didn’t anticipate this-”

“You didn’t anticipate a lot of things, Luke, just get us the fuck out of here!”

“We’re on our way.” Luke said, grimly, and the line went dead. Jason cursed, shoved the comm into his pocket, and turned to help the rest of the team.

“Alpha squad got the kids out just fine, they’re turning back now to help us.” he said through gritted teeth, shoving his back against the door and trying to ignore the bangs and yells from the other side, “We just need to hold on a few minutes longer-”

“We don’t have a few minutes,” Ethan snapped, “those explosives are gonna blow any second now!”

Jason whirled and scanned the room frantically; his eyes caught on a metal door on the other side of the room, padlocked shut.

“I need you all to listen to me,” he said in a low voice, and three pairs of eyes turned to him.

“Charlie, can you smash the lock on that door over there?” Jason questioned.

“Yeah, easy.”

“Okay. Take Silena and Ethan and get through that door, get outside. I’m gonna find some way of keeping this door shut, and I’ll be right behind you.”

Charles was already moving towards the door, Ethan after him, but Silena hesitated, unsure.

“Jason, are you-?”

“GO, Silena!” he grunted, his muscles straining with the effort of holding the door back alone, “I promise I’ll be right behind you.”

She nodded tentatively, spun on her heel, and took off running after the two other boys. Jason smiled to himself, a grim, bitter twist of a smile,

“Okay, Grace,” he muttered, “You’ve gotten yourself out of worse, think!”

Something slammed into the door from the other side, and he almost lost his footing. He had to think of something, and he had to do it soon, before the bombs went off. He spotted a small sheet of metal sitting on top of an old stack of boxes just to his left. If he could wedge it through the handle, he could buy himself enough time to get out, maybe.

He braced himself against the door for a minute, and then pushed off and made a grab for the metal, almost missing it for a heart-stopping second but closing his fingers around it, in the end. The edges sliced into his palm, but he didn’t feel it. He shoved the strip through the door handles, using all his strength to bend the edges down and under.

“Time to go,” he grunted, whirling and running for the door as fast as his legs could possibly carry him-

\- a distant rumbling was all the warning he had, before the building shook under his feet and the world exploded around him.

 

“-son, JASON!” 

Coming back to consciousness was like trying to claw his way through a river of nails, slow and incredibly painful, but when he blinked the darkness out of his eyes (the world on fire around him, his mouth filling with blood), he was seemingly, surprisingly, alive.

“Jason!” someone screamed again, from above him, and he lolled his head back to see Thalia peering frantically down at him through a skylight.

“Are you okay?! Are you hurt anywhere?”

Jason’s head still felt a little bit like it was packed with cotton, but the world was a lot clearer now. He pushed himself shakily to his feet, and took a catalogue of injuries. He’d bitten through his lip, probably from the force of the explosion, and that was the source of the blood in his mouth. His head was throbbing, but he wasn’t really brave enough to reach back and see if it was cut open, there were minor cuts and scrapes covering his arms and legs, and a hole in his favorite shirt, but miraculously, he wasn’t missing any limbs. 

“I’m fine,” he called up, voice hoarse “maybe a few broken ribs. But this building could come down any minute.”

“Can you get out of the room?”

The doors he stayed behind to hold shut were completely covered in rubble, but the ones the rest of his team escaped through are still intact.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll meet you in the alley out back.”

“I’m coming to find you,” Thalia said, firmly, and her head disappeared from the window. Jason staggered to the doors on the other side of the room, dodging burning pieces of rubble scattered across the floor. The metal was burning hot to the touch when he grabbed it; he hissed in pain and jerked his hand away.

“Okay, it’s okay, no big deal, everything’s fine,” he muttered to himself, tearing off a strip from the bottom of his already ripped, blackened shirt, and using it as a buffer. When he finally managed to wrench the door open and slip through, there was merciful coolness on the other side. Okay. Okay, he was okay, now he needed to get out before the building burned and he burned with it-

“You look very much like your father, you know.”

A man separated from the shadow like he was made of it himself; a tall, lean man with inky hair and eyes so dark and deep that no light could possibly touch them. A silver ring glinted on his right hand, and a shudder ran down Jason’s spine at the sight of it. _Lord Death._

“But, I suppose you would have no way of knowing that, would you?”

The man had a deep voice, smooth and conversational, but Jason couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink, he was so afraid. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but he couldn’t force anything out. The man smiled, a horrible thing, stretching out across his face like a slash- and he was across the room in an instant, faster than Jason could follow with his eyes. A hand slammed into his throat, skeletal, impossibly strong fingers digging into his windpipe and lifting him off the floor, and Jason’s mind exploded in a haze of pain; red clouding in and pressing down at the edges of his vision.

“Please-” he choked, scrabbling weakly at the man’s hand, “why-”

“Where is my son?” Lord Death asked, still pleasant, still smiling. His hand relaxed a little, giving Jason a few inches of breathing room.

“I don’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jason panted, desperate to fight off the urge to close his eyes, to slip away and let himself shut down. The hand relaxed completely for a moment, and Jason sucked in deep gulps of air. The smile slipped off Lord Death’s face like water, and for a moment, the skin seemed to peel away from his bones, leaving only a yawning, gaping darkness behind it.

“More’s the pity,” he whispered, and the hand was back, a crushing, squeezing pressure that left no room for air, this time. Jason’s mouth opened, his throat worked in a soundless scream, but no noise came out. A white hot poker slid into his stomach, skewering him from the inside out, scorching his intestines. He looked down, and his mind caught, helplessly, on the knife hilt protruding from his stomach. The last thing he heard before he gave in and let his eyes shut was Thalia, screaming his name.

 

iv.

He was floating. That was all he knew. There was pain, distant and muffled, but mostly there was white, a great sea of white that swallowed him up. He floated, alone. 

_Jason._

That sounded... that sounded like Thalia. But it couldn’t be, not here. This wasn’t a place where the living were allowed to tread.

_I’m sorry, Jason. I know you’re going to hate me for this, but I need you to understand._

That was just like Thalia, always blaming herself, always so quick to assume everything was her fault.

_You’ll be safe here. I can’t watch you risk your life anymore, not like this. It’s my job to protect you, and maybe this... maybe this is the best way._

What was- what was she talking about? That sounded like, that almost sounded like-

_I’ll miss you, baby brother._

Thalia-

_I love you. I_ _love_ _you, Jason. Goodbye._

Thalia no, wait-

 

“Thalia, WAIT-” Jason shrieked, thrashing upright, hand outstretched. Light flooded his eyes, and he winced, cringing back and blinking. The moment his pupils adjusted he catalogued his surroundings, quickly, the way Luke had always taught him too; unfamiliar room - simple- white dresser, small bed. A throbbing, gnawing pain shivered its way through his stomach, and he threw back the covers and stared down at his heavily bandaged stomach in confusion.

The door creaked open, and an older man with a neatly trimmed dark beard shouldered through with a tray.

“Ah, you’re up.” he said, curtly, coming over to place the tray on the dresser. “Good. Your sister promised you’d be useful, and I’d hate to see potential fall through the cracks.”

Jason jerked forward eagerly, freezing when his stomach protested.

“Where’s my sister, can I see her?”

The man hesitated, fidgeting with the tray, and sighed.

“Sorry, son, you’ve been out of it for two weeks now. Your sister’s long gone. Here,” he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, “she told me to give this to you when you woke up.”

He turned and strode back across the room to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, turning back for a moment like he had something he wanted to say, and then shook his head and left, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

Jason unfolded the paper with trembling fingers.

_Jason,_

His breath catches in his throat at the familiar, spidery handwriting.

_Jason,_

_I’m leaving, with Luke. The Halfbloods are headed to Circuit 3. On to bigger and better things, huh? Luke says he knows a way to get us in. Not sure I believe him, but, well, he’s Luke._

_I’m leaving you here. Yeah, it’s a dick move. Yeah, you’re probably gonna hate me for it. I’d stay with you if I could, but Luke needs me too. This is the best thing for both of us. I know you must be confused, so I’ll try and explain. The man’s name is Chiron. He’s a Doctor, Jase, a real, bona fide Doctor, the kind that helps people. He’s agreed to take you on as an apprentice of sorts. Teach you how to do what he does. Give you a place to stay._

_I know, Jason, I know. This isn’t what you wanted. If I’m being honest with myself, it isn’t what I wanted either. But maybe this about about what we_ want _anymore. I won’t watch you get hurt anymore, not because of me. We’ll see each-other again someday, I swear to you. This isn’t forever. I love you, little brother._

_\- Thalia_

Somebody, somewhere, was crying, a horrible, keening sound that sounded like it was ripping out of their chest. Jason glanced up, trying to blink the sudden fuzziness from his eyes, and looked down to the paper he was still clutching in his hand-

Oh. Oh. 

It was him. He was crying. There were tear-stains on the paper. Some small, important thing deep down inside of him cracked, and Jason hunched over the letter in his hands, shoulders wrenching forward, his whole body jerking with the force of his sorrow. The action made the pain in his stomach flare up almost unbearably, but he didn’t care.

“Thalia...” he moaned, gagging on his tears, “Thalia...”

 

v.

The next few weeks passed in a blur. He ate when Chiron brought him food, climbed slowly out of bed for two hours a day to walk across the room on shaking limbs, trying to rehabilitate his ripped stomach muscles, and slept deep and dreamless at night. He did not think of Thalia, he did not picture her face. 

A month went by, then two. His body grew stronger, little by little. He was healthy enough, now, to shadow Chiron around the clinic for a few hours a day. Chiron taught subtly, hands on, calling him over to sterilize wounds, stitch up cuts, teaching him how to reset broken bones and snap joints back into place.

And Jason, Jason loved it. He loved saving people, he loved the grateful, peaceful looks on their faces when he helped to take their pain away. It was so different from watching the light fade out of a person’s eyes, from knowing that he was the one that stole it from them.

 

December was colder than usual. It made Jason’s freshly healed scar tissue throb, painfully, in the early mornings and late at night. It was a reminder, he supposed, that he was still alive, but that thought didn’t make it hurt any less. More and more, those days, he felt... hollow. Scooped out inside, empty. He went through the motions, but nothing seemed real. It was like he was back in the void again, drifting in white.

He was jarred awake by his destiny on the twenty-fifth, Christmas day. It came the way destinies often do, banging frantically on the door at three in the morning. Jason answered groggily, calling, “We’re closed,” through the door and turning to go back to bed again.

“Please!” a small voice shouted, “Please, help me!”

Jason hesitated, and then went to the door and opened it, a crack. A boy was standing outside, maybe a year or two younger than Jason but much, much smaller. He was thin and barefoot, his clothes hanging off him, and he was clutching a small, filthy puppy in his arms. 

“Please help,” he begged, holding the bundle out to Jason, “he’ll die if you don’t!”

“We’re not an animal clinic,” Jason sputtered, “I don’t know anything about dogs-”

“Please.” the boy begged, looking up at Jason through a tangle of wild, curly hair. His liquid dark eyes made Jason suck in a breath, a short, punched out little gasp of air. He’d seen those eyes before.

“Was... was your mother’s name Esperanza?” he asked, hesitantly. The boy’s eyes go impossibly wide.

“I... yes. How did you-”

“Come inside,” Jason cut him off, “I’ll see what I can do for your dog.”

“His name’s Argo,” said the boy, gratefully, as he moved through the door, “and mine’s Leo.”

“Leo, huh?” Jason mused, flicking his eyes over the too-thin collarbones and the bloody scabs on Leo’s bare feet.

_I promise._

Jason smiled to himself, and shook his head. Fate had a funny way of working itself out.

“Hey, Leo. I’ve got a room upstairs I’d be willing to share, if, you know, you’re looking for a place to stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (shout-out to TheOtakuSupreme, who pointed out that Leo's mother's name is, in fact, Esperanza. I couldn't for the life of me remember, and I wrote this without internet so I had no way of checking. thanks for helping a girl out)

**Author's Note:**

> Lot of fancy words for your basic orphan!Percy-and-Nico-live-underground-and-fight-in-gladiator-style-tournaments-for money-and-have-sex-a-lot.


End file.
